Rotten School 04 – Lose, Team, Lose!

R. L. Stine's Lose, Team, Lose is a very silly school story for 7 year olds about the worst football team you've ever heard of.

What happens

Bernie Bridges is the quarterback of the Fighting Apples, and he'd like you to know he got the job for being brilliant, quick and good-looking. The coach's words of wisdom as he hands over the ball? "Try not to get hurt."

This is the fourth Rotten School book, and the Apples have never won a game. Bernie's receivers play with their helmets on backwards. His biggest lineman, Beast, chases a dog across the pitch in the middle of a play (and Bernie ends up with the ball stuck in his throat).

So when Jennifer Ecch flattens him on the school lawn, Bernie doesn't just lie there winded. He has an idea. Jennifer is the strongest kid at Rotten School, she's totally in love with Bernie and she calls him Honey Bucket. She might be exactly what his team is missing.

Of course nothing stays simple for long. There's April-May June, who won't be seen having dinner with a loser. There's Sherman Oaks, the spoiled rich kid who films himself scoring every goal. And Sherman has a sneaky plan of his own.

Reading it is like being stuck with Bernie while he tells you how amazing he is, and it's very funny because he's so often wrong. The jokes come thick and fast. Burps, a play called Throw Up Number Six, and a coach whose stomach arrives ten seconds before he does.

It's American through and through, with American football, fourth graders and plenty of "dudes". A few of the jokes feel dated now too. Bernie announces that girls are almost as good as boys at sport, and later he tries to lose on purpose by picking the worst team he can find, including a new boy who is blind. It reads as Bernie being awful rather than the book laughing at anyone, but it might be worth a chat.

If your reader loves a hero who's completely full of himself and whose plans keep backfiring, this is a lot of fun.

What to read next

And if they want to see where the scheming started, The Big Blueberry Barf-Off is the first Rotten School book, with Belzer bringing Bernie breakfast in bed and a giant pie battle on the way.